Ninjas Get Drunk
by Delirium Cordia
Summary: Iruka, Kakashi, Asuma, Genma, Raidou, and Gai are hopelessly drunk. Ridiculousness and fluffiness ensues. um.. KakashiIruka, RaidouGenma?
1. Ninjas Get Drunk

"Shit, we're _drunk," _Genma slurred happily.

"Yeah," Raidou agreed.

"Well, you're _more drunk."_

"Am not!"

"I think Kakashi's the drunkest," Asuma said, gesturing widely with his cup of sake.

"_Most drunk," _Iruka corrected, ever the schoolteacher.

"No, that's not even right!" Raidou complained.

"It is _too,"_ Iruka insisted.

Gai bounced up and down. "Alas, my eternal rival has beaten me once again, and succeeded in drinking the most sake in ten minutes. Now I will have to bunny-hop two-hundred laps around Konoha!"

"I don't think… that's a good idea," Iruka said blearily. Somewhere in the back of his mind, alarm bells were going off at the idea of a drunken Gai-sensei bunny-hopping around Konoha in the dark.

"I will be back in no more than two hours!" Gai hopped off his stool, and immediately crashed to the floor.

Asuma giggled and pointed.

Kakashi stretched languidly. "That didn't look like a bunny. Bunnies do it more like this." Kakashi hopped. It was actually more akin to a swan dive, only about a thousand times less graceful. He landed face-first.

Gai did not respond. He seemed to have forgotten how to use his legs, and was therefore having a fair bit of trouble getting up off the floor.

Raidou, Genma, and Asuma cackled. "You guys suck as bunnies."

"Stop being bunnies. Bunnies are dumb," Iruka accused. Bunnies _were_ dumb. He wondered why he'd never thought about how dumb bunnies were before.

"Help me up," Kakashi ordered. Raidou picked him up and guided him back to his stool. Iruka got Gai up and told him he could do the bunny-laps later.

"Annnnnnywayy, it's _drunkest," _Asuma persisted.

"More drunk," Iruka corrected, wondering aimlessly why he couldn't focus on one object for more than half a second.

"More drunker!" Genma sang.

That sounded right, Iruka decided.

"I want more," Kakashi mumbled, rocking precariously on his seat.

"Here," Raidou said, missing Kakashi's cup and pouring a generous amount of alcohol onto the table.

Iruka blinked. That shouldn't be happening. "I wonder why it won't go into the cup,'' he pondered aloud.

"It's weird. I don't get it," Raidou said, and kept pouring.

"I want _more!" _Kakashi complained.

"Shut up," Asuma slurred.

"_No."_

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes!"

"No!"

"You suck as a bunny!"

"I do not!" Kakashi wailed, genuinely wounded.

"It's okay, Asuma didn't mean it," Iruka assured him. Kakashi looked close to tears.

"I did _too."_

"Hey Raidou, the sake still won't go into his cup," Genma noted, as Raidou continued to pour the alcohol out onto the table. "That's funny!"

Gai slumped over in his seat, looking dejected.

"It's okay, Gai," Asuma said kindly. "We all know you're better at bunny-hopping than Kakashi is."

"I'm a _good _bunny!" Kakashi cried.

Iruka wondered briefly if the room was supposed to be spinning round and round. It probably was, he decided contentedly.

Genma looked worried. "That man's coming over to yell at us."

The bartender stomped over. "If you fellows don't _mind, _I'm going to close soon," he growled.

Iruka smiled politely. "Oh, we don't mind, go right ahead, we won't bother you." As he finished this sentence, the room tipped alarmingly, and he found himself looking up at the ceiling. "The ceiling moved," he informed the bartender, who thumped away, muttering angrily about "god-damn drunken ninjas, every single night."

Raidou laughed. "Nuh uh! The ceiling didn't move! _You _moved!"

Iruka realized that he was, in fact, sideways, and lying in someone's lap. "Who are you?" he asked, poking the person's knee.

"I _am _a good bunny," Kakashi said by way of response.

"Stop talking about bunnies! I hate bunnies!" Iruka complained. Really, bunnies were awful!

"I sort of like them," Genma said calmly. "All cute and fluffy."

"They have dumb ears," Iruka said crossly.

Raidou shook the sake bottle. "It's empty," he said, uncomprehendingly.

"You poured it all out, moron," Asuma said.

Raidou was puzzled.

"What time is it?" Iruka asked, dazed.

"I don't know. Late, probably."

Iruka seemed to recall he had classes to teach the next day. He yawned.

Asuma managed to light another cigarette without catching anything on fire, and Iruka still had the sense to recognize this as a very good thing. Gai had fallen asleep at the table, his face in a puddle of sake. Kakashi pouted, Genma was swaying on his stool, and Raidou was trying to drink the alcohol off the tabletop.

Kakashi had a very comfortable lap, Iruka realized. He giggled, and when he sat up, he wrapped his arms around Kakashi's waist and kissed him lightly on a mask-clad cheek.

Kakashi looked slightly surprised, and then grinned dazedly. Genma regarded them interestedly. He nudged Raidou in what he must have thought was a subtle move, but was actually one that nearly knocked the other ninja off his stool.

Raidou grinned, and then quickly kissed Genma, swiping the toothpick from his mouth.

"Hey, wha--!'

Raidou kissed him again, and this time Genma decided he quite liked being plastered beyond the boundaries of reason.

The harassed bartender glanced over at the table, did something of a double-take, and stormed over again, hollering and flapping his arms and gesturing towards the door. Iruka, once off his stool, decided he felt altogether too floppy to be standing on two feet, and promptly collapsed onto the cursing bartender.

After a laborsome few minutes and lots of pushing, shoving, general manhandling and coaxing, the bartender successfully got the intoxicated ninjas on the other side of his door.

Thankfully incapable of walking, the six of them slumped contentedly against the wall of the tavern. Iruka's face was buried in Kakashi's neck, Asuma fell asleep with a lit cigarette still dangling from his lips, Raidou, sprawled on Genma, and Gai muttered about bunnies in his sleep.


	2. Ninjas Watch the Sunrise

**Thanks a LOT to everyone who reviewed. You made me happy. I wasn't planning on writing anything else for this, but I dunno. I felt like it? **

**Hehe. I started writing this in my notebook in science today, and now I can't find it, so I think I must have given it to Mr. Lee instead of the vocabulary work. Whoops. Poor Mr. Lee. Ninjas and sunrises instead of alkali metals and semiconductors. **

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Upon waking, Iruka became suddenly aware of a number of things: First of all, he was obviously not in bed at his apartment. He couldn't not move his legs, or even feel them. His head felt like it had been bashed with a heavy metal object. He seemed to be lying up against someone's chest. And a voice that was curiously close to his ear was saying, "Iruka, wake up," over and over again. He opened his eyes, and looked up. A masked face peered down.

"Kakashi?" he asked blearily.

"Yo."

When Iruka looked towards his feet, he saw that Asuma was sprawled over his ankles, effectively numbing them. Iruka wondered vaguely how much longer it would take for the limbs to fall off entirely.

"Um." To his left was an entanglement of limbs he recognized as Genma and Raidou. And on Kakashi's other side, Gai was sleeping flat out on the ground, snoring.

With some rush of something-or-other in him (he attributed the feeling to his garbled mental state and the horrendously early hour), he realized that Kakashi had his arm around his waist, and one of his own hands was in the Jounin's hair.

He looked up at the storefront and groaned. "The bar…"

"So it seems," Kakashi said lightly, pulling Iruka against him and sitting up straight. Iruka kicked his feet a bit, and Asuma rolled off of his legs, sleeping as soundly as ever. Mercifully, Iruka felt the blood start to circulate back into the limbs.

It was still dark, and the streets were silent, save for Gai's low snores. And a few cats dashed by in the shadows, looking reproachfully at the two. It was around four in the morning, Iruka guessed. There was a hint of a pale golden glow over the stone faces of the Hokage, making the sky an indistinct shade of bright gray. It was chilly out; the air had a crisp bite to it, and Iruka found himself shifting closer to Kakashi, who hugged him tightly.

Iruka wasn't exactly sure how it was he came to spend the night outside the bar amid a heap of other intoxicated ninjas. At least, he could only assume they were intoxicated. It would explain a lot—particularly the splitting ache in his head.

_Damn. He _knew_ better that to get drunk like this,_ he berated himself, but only half-heartedly.

Iruka faintly recalled kissing Kakashi—did that happen? _It was just the sort of thing he would go and do under the influence of too much sake_, he scolded himself. Those sorts of things came way too easily once he was drunk, and then, when sober, he was skittish and nervous. Granted, now he wasn't at all uncomfortable; he wasn't complaining. He sighed contentedly and relaxed against Kakashi. Curiously, his headache went down considerably.

The two lay in complete silence and watched the sun come up. Iruka drifted off into a light sleep a few times, and when he woke up, Kakashi would always laugh softly and pull him closer. Otherwise, they sat in silence, simply watching the sun come up over the cliff. Iruka decided this was the sort of thing he didn't do enough. The scene was gorgeous—the sun was a deep orange disk amid brilliant smears and stripes of red and yellow and purple—did Konoha always have such a good sunrise?

Truly, this was the most peaceful he'd felt in a long time. Kakashi breathed slowly, and with every breath he took Iruka felt his own body rise and fall along with him.

He watched Kakashi's hands. Sometimes they clasped each other, closing the Chuunin in a protective hug, and sometimes they crept into Iruka's hands, where their fingers interlocked warmly. Iruka was happy.

They were only disturbed once, when Gai woke up. All in the space of one second, he had bolted straight up as if on a spring, whirled around, taking in the odd scene, flashed Konoha in general his trademark pose, and without a word bounded off in the direction of the woods. Iruka reckoned he hadn't forgotten about his pledge of bunny-hopping around the village two-hundred times.

After an hour or two, he remembered he had a class to teach. Really, it was more like he remembered he had a life and an apartment and a job and other aspects of his existence that did not necessarily have anything to do with lying quietly in Kakashi's arms and watching the sunrise.

It was sort of an, "Oh yeah, life," feeling. Iruka didn't have those very often, but this was definitely one of them.

It was just before six, and people would start to appear on the streets any minute. Iruka remembered with a sinking feeling the pile of ungraded papers still on his desk in his apartment. The papers that had gone ungraded for more than a week.

He sighed. To stay here and be mauled by his student's shuriken for failing to pass back any grades, or to avoid injury by leaving the sunrise to Kakashi and getting back to his apartment to start marking papers?

Leaving Kakashi, or multiple shuriken injuries? Staying with Kakashi, or not being attacked upon arrival to the academy?

It really wasn't much of a decision. Without more than a few seconds of hesitation, he leaned back in Kakashi's arms, settling comfortably. His students didn't have very good aim, anyway.

**Some random things. Is it Raidou or Raido? I've seen it both ways, and I'm not sure which one is right. And are the plurals for Jounin, ninja, genin, chuunin, and the like the same as the singular? I'm pretty sure they are, but I've also seen them as ninjas, Jounins, etc.. But, then, the title of this is _Ninjas_ Get Drunk… meh. I don't know.**

**Does anyone know for sure which way is right? If I'm wrong I'll probably just go on using the incorrect one, but… I'd like to know anyway. **

**Please review!**


	3. Ninjas Get Hungover

Iruka was wrong about his students. When properly motivated, they had _very _good aim. Any other day, he would have been thrilled to discover that his efforts were actually paying off, but today was an entirely different story, as could be expected, since he was the one on the receiving end of the attack.

And, of course, his head hurt like a bitch.

Getting pelted with shuriken and other makeshift missiles first thing in the morning when it was already very difficult to stay on two feet was enough to push any reasonable teacher over the edge. But of course, Iruka was far beyond the regular reasonable teacher. Using super-human self-restraint, he abstained from going on a crazy massacring rampage and obliterating the whole class, leaving no survivors. He figured he'd probably feel bad about it once the headache died down.

He was able to solve most of his problems by giving the kids lots of busy work and telling them that if they made the slightest noise he'd chuck them into next Tuesday. Having sufficiently scared his class into silence, he was able to relax at the front of the room and drink coffee.

And then there was his other problem. Well, it wasn't a problem, really. A dilemma? A good dilemma, if there was such a thing.

Yes, he decided, Kakashi definitely could be classified as a Good Dilemma.

But what the hell was he supposed to do? He could hardly have himself be drunk every time the man talked to him. And what exactly was going on, anyway?

Iruka fretted. Kakashi was probably off somewhere doing something cool and Kakashi-ish. How could he possibly be so—_cool­ _all the time! Didn't _anything_ work him up?

Iruka caught himself before he started sounding too much like Gai, what with the obsessing over how "hip" and "modern" Kakashi was.

He hoped his muttering to himself wasn't too visible.

Really, though! Going around reading those damn Icha Icha books and looking all cool in a mask! And _he_ certainly wasn't sitting somewhere worrying about what to do.

Iruka scowled.

Not very surprisingly, Gai-sensei was completely and entirely immune to the skewed blood alcohol content induced chemical imbalance known as the hangover.

As witnessed by Iruka and Kakashi, Gai had zipped off immediately upon waking up, and had completed the bunny laps in record time. Once he was done, he had just enough time to go and grab a quick breakfast before meeting his team for training.

In other words, he had a completely normal morning. He leapt around as usual, spouting about how beautiful the morning was, and giving everything a label of MAGNIFICENT, GLORIOUS, or MARVELOUS. He seemed totally unaffected by the previous night's inebriation.

Granted, for someone like Gai, being drunk didn't change his personality much at all, so it could sort of be expected that he wouldn't get too awfully hung over.

Genma watched from the window of the Hokage's office as a fully sober albeit adrenalized Gai bounded through the street, his team trailing behind. And here _he_ was, hardly able to stand up without his brain feeling like it was trapped in a lemon squeezer. It was embarrassing, really. Unfair.

"You should know, before giving me my next assignment, that I can barely stand up and basically feel half-dead," he told the Hokage, standing respectfully (and painfully) in front of her desk.

Tsunade looked him over shrewdly. "Who were _you _out with last night?"

"Raidou," Genma started.

Shizune, filing papers over in the corner, cackled and grinned madly.

"—_And _Iruka, Gai, Kakashi, and Asuma," he finished crossly.

"Fine thing that is, having half of Konoha's Jounin and the school-teacher completely drunk all at once."

Raidou grumbled. "Not Gai."

"Sorry?"

"How _he_ can hold his liquor better than anyone else, I don't know."

Tsunade tsked. "Stop whining. You're to rearrange the filing cabinets in here—the current system annoys me. Alphabetically starting from over there. Rows coming this way. Straight lines. Don't get anything out of order!"

Raidou looked blank.

"Or you can run this scroll over to the Sand Village. Have it there no later than noon," Tsunade smirked, twirling a scroll in her fingers.

There were easily fifty heavy steel filing cabinets in the office. Raidou didn't think it was hardly fair that one of the legendary Sannin, renowned for her super strength, was having a poor hung-over Jounin play office-boy.

But the Sand Village was far away. And he didn't like that dangerous look in the Hokage's eye. He got to work.

Asuma was having a rough morning. First, having a massive hangover, then getting beat up by Kurenai for having said massive hangover, and now this.

All the Jounin in charge of Genin compared their teams, arguing over who had it the worst, talking about which of their students should never have made it out of Ninja Academy, and other kinds of related gossip and complaints. The staff-room consensus was that Kakashi easily had the most to deal with, but Asuma felt strongly that his team was the most dysfunctional out of all of them.

Ino needed to be given at least five times the normal dose of sedatives, he thought—_maybe­ _that would get the noise level down to a dull roar. Of course, there was the deafening crunching sound emanating from Chouji's general direction—he was on his fifth bag of chips this morning. That could be taken care of with, oh, maybe _three_ shuriken?

He sighed, and gave up on plotting ways to—temporarily, of course—put his team out of action.

Ino gave a particularly high-pitched shriek and bashed Shikamaru over the head—Asuma hadn't quite heard, but he felt sure he'd caught a "Don't say that about Sasuke!"

The harassed Jounin buried his head in his arms.

"What are we supposed to be doing, Asuma-sensei?" one of them finally asked.

"I don't know. Go do something productive. Have target practice, or something," he moaned.

Shikamaru slouched off, muttering about how "troublesome" everything was.

Asuma could attest.

Around noon, he staggered off to meet Kurenai for lunch, where presumably he would apologize profusely for getting so drunk and then most likely would be slapped around a bit more before being forgiven.

He felt strongly like he never wanted to drink again, although it certainly provided some interesting new developments. Kakashi and Iruka, or Raidou and Genma, how about _that_? He'd have to check with Kurenai about that. She tended to know everything in that branch of the gossip vine.

Raidou thought it was way too bright. Damned sun. He wished he had a pair of sunglasses or something, but the fact was that nobody in Konoha got away with wearing sunglasses without looking like Aoba, which was something he wasn't aspiring to do.

He figured he could take the day off. The Hokage hadn't ordered him anywhere, he didn't have a mission to worry about, and he really wasn't feeling well

It was between eight and nine in the morning when he finally picked himself up off the street. The others had already gone off to their various jobs, and he didn't have anything to do, so he meandered slowly back to his apartment. Once he was there, he closed all the blinds, turned off all the lights, and took a few painkillers.

He flopped down his couch and did his best to totally space out.

A few hours later, he was awakened from his stupor by someone pounding insistently on the door. Probably someone with a message from the Hokage, asking him what the _hell _he thought he was doing, not showing up for work.

He'd just opened the door, and was preparing his excuses, when an exhausted looking Genma crashed into him, nearly impaling him with the senbon in his mouth.

"Genma?"

"I'm crashing on your couch. Right now."

"Why not your apartment?"

"Too far away."

"What have _you_ been doing?" Raidou asked, as the heavily fatigued Genma hobbled across the room.

"Moving filing cabinets."

"Huh?"

"Tsunade's a _bitch."_

"I never showed up for work."

"Then expect her to have you run off the Sand Village and back when you finally do." Genma flopped down on the couch, and was asleep in a matter of seconds, before Raidou could respond.

Raidou carefully removed the senbon needle from between the sleeping Jounin's lips. Genma'd kill himself one day, falling asleep with that thing in his mouth, Raidou was sure.

He stared at Genma's sleeping form for a few moments, watching his peaceful breathing, and then sat down on the floor in front of the couch and leaned back, resting his head just a few inches away from Genma's. If he was going to get ordered off to the Sand Village later on, he could at least get some more sleep.

Genma smelled good, he realized right before drifting off into a light sleep.

It was ten in the morning. Kakashi had told his team to meet for training at eight, so he had another hour or so to kill before showing up. He wasn't particularly looking forward to it—his headache wasn't getting any better, and a little bit of Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura went a _long _way this early in the morning.

Kakashi leaned against the wall of a random building reading his book and trying to look cool and Kakashi-ish.

The truth was, it was hard being so cool all the time. He had a reputation to hold up, and his current situation wasn't helping him in the least.

For example, how could he be expected to appear indifferent and nonchalant when he was busy agonizing about What To Do About Iruka?

What to do, what to do, what to do…

He brooded. If he avoided the Academy, the ramen shop, and the mission room as much as possible—no, that was what ten-year-olds did. And Kakashi didn't much fancy the idea of ignoring Iruka, anyway.

Well, maybe nothing was going on anyway. And so there would be no need to do anything. Yes, that was it. Act as if nothing had happened.

No, that wasn't good either. That was also a rather childish take on the matter. He was Kakashi, and therefore synonymous with "cool." Damn. What would Gai expect him to do?

Kakashi was sure that asking the question, "What would Gai expect me to do" was a sure path to everything he did not want to happen, but it really was his only option.

**Um. Still have no idea what I'm doing with this, but please do review! **


	4. Gai Was Never Very Good at Gossipping

**Okay. There are all these annoying page breaks scattered kind of randomly throughout this chapter… my page breaks didn't turn out last chapter, which was annoying, so this time I made sure they wouldn't go away. But then they turned into Mutant Page Breaks of Doom and they multiplied and put themselves in random places, and I couldn't get rid of them. So. Or maybe they won't turn out anyway.**

**Um. I pretty much left the last of the accurate Kakashi portrayal pretty far back. Be warned.**

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Kakashi had never before sunk so low. He done some lowly things before—all manner of inexcusable, abhorrent things, in fact—but this? This was going to far.

Having decided to forego training his Genin for the day, he hid behind his book and shuffled off as subtly as possible to find Gai. He knew only too well that it was absolutely futile trying to be subtle in a village full of ninja, but he was willing to give it a try anyway—he couldn't afford being seen.

He found Gai training his team in a field way over on the other side of the village. Tenten worked with Neji, throwing and hitting for him to block, and Lee was doing his workout routine by himself a few feet away from them. Gai lounged under a nearby tree, no doubt basking in the glory of the fine day, and occasionally shouting encouragement to Lee, who seemed to be on his nine-hundredth-and-twenty-third push-up.

Kakashi approached stealthily, sidling up to Gai and tapping him on the shoulder.

"Ahh, Kakashi, how marvelous to see you!"

"You too," Kakashi said hurriedly. "Uh, do you think you could—"

"Come and sit, and enjoy the glorious day!" Gai exclaimed, patting the grass beside him.

Kakashi sat. "Yes, yes. Now, um, I have something to ask you…"

"An honor!"

"Ahh, okay." Kakashi floundered. "So, you see…"

"Yes?"

"I, um. Well. So. Uhhh…" Kakashi was deeply distressed. He decided to get it over with. "So, suppose, hypothetically, of course, there was this Chuunin sensei, and a hypothetical Jounin hypothetically attracted to the hypothetical Chuunin, and, well, he doesn't actually need to be a Jounin, he can be anything, I mean, maybe he's a Jounin and maybe he's not! What does it matter? And so, suppose the Jounin, ahh… dammit, um, likestheotherone and has no idea what to do about it, _hypothetically,_ what would you suggest that he do?" Kakashi thought he might faint from the effort.

Gai looked contemplative.

Kakashi hyperventilated.

"Well, does the hypothetical Chuunin return your feelings?"

"_MY _feelings?" Kakashi yelped. "Oh, no, these aren't my feelings at all, very far from it, extremely far from it, ahh…" he fumbled for words. " This situation is entirely theoretical. Very, very speculative! No basis in fact whatsoever!"

Gai didn't seem to hear. "Hmm… what Chuunin's could you be referring to? Maybe Izumo?"

Kakashi stood up very fast. How could he have ever imagined this would be a good idea? "No, no, not at all. You know, I really must be going. Thank you for all your… help. Goodbye!"

He tried to sprint away, but Gai vanished from his spot under the tree and appeared right in his path, providing a fairly large obstruction. Kakashi crashed.

Gai hardly noticed. "No, he doesn't seem your type… Suzume! It's Suzume, isn't it? Oh, it's so wonderful to see you, my eternal rival, beginning to embrace the Flower of Youthful Romance…"

Kakashi was horrified. "Not…Suzume…" he managed to choke out.

"No? Well, no matter. I'll have this figured out soon enough." It took less that a minute. As it dawned on him, Gai broke into a huge grin. "Umino Iruka! I bet that's it."

If he only could have reached a weapon, Kakashi would have committed ritual suicide on the spot.

"Kakashi, my Eternal Rival, you have chosen a worthy goal in Iruka-sensei. A finer man I myself could not have—"

"Gai, please!"

"Oh, of course, you have come for advice! Have no fear, simply take my heed, and everything will—"

"I'm never, ever taking advice from _you," _Kakashi spat, jumping up and attempting to strangle the other Jounin. "I don't know _why_ I thought—"

Gai tsked. "Calmly, calmly. You'll never get Iruka-sensei to return your love if you'll insist on behaving like a moron."

Gai was calling _him _a moron? Kakashi knew he had hit absolute rock bottom.

"Now, sit down, and we can discuss a Plan of Action."

"Get your Plans of Action away from me!" Kakashi hollered, feeling more than a little hysterical. "I'll take care of this myself!"

"If you insist, my esteemed rival. But don't hesitate to return if you need any assistance!" Gai shouted at Kakashi's fast retreating back.

Once back on the streets of Konoha, Gai slumped against a building and breathed heavily. _That_ had been absolutely _nightmarish_. He needed something to take his mind off it, so he went to go find his team for training. They weren't at the bridge, they must have given up and gone home. _So little faith_, Kakashi said to himself, shaking his head.

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Asuma had no one to gossip with. Normally, his gossip came from Iruka, who, between manning the mission desk and spending most of his time around young children, was quite the source of the juiciest information.

Kakashi always knew everything about everyone, and even if he didn't broadcast the information, he would almost always comply if asked to share some news.

Genma and Raidou were the ones _he _spread gossip to, usually over coffee in the break room between shifts.

But as all four of his regular gossip buddies were the ones he intended to be gossiping about, he really had no one to talk to.

There was Gai—but really, no one with more than two brain cells ever told Gai anything remotely secret, because in a matter of hours it would spread all over the village. And Gai wasn't really a good gossip. The word itself implied sneakiness and underhandedness, two things absolutely never, ever associated with Gai-sensei.

Asuma had tried plying Kurenai for information—she definitely knew something! —But he must have looked a little too rabid to appear only politely curious, and so all he got for his troubles was a strong rap about the head and a scolding for being an insensitive wart with no sense of privacy.

Of course, then Kurenai had seen Shizune, and got up to go talk to her. From the squealing, Asuma deduced that they were comparing notes. Catty and hypocritical, all of them.

After a few minutes of solitary brooding, Kakashi came over and sat on the stool next to him, looking distinctly ashen faced.

"You don't look well," Asuma told him.

Kakashi shook his head miserably.

"What's up?" Asuma asked, looking concerned, when in fact, inner-Asuma was celebrating a victory. He was actually going to find something out! And he wouldn't tell Kurenai a single word. Ha!

Slowly, Kakashi told Asuma what had transpired.

"You told… GAI this?" Asuma whispered, genuinely horrified.

Kakashi buried his face in his arms. "What am I going to _do?"_

"How long ago was this?"

"Not so long. Just a half hour, I'd say."

"That gives you another thirty minutes at the most," Asuma said.

"Thirty minutes for what?"

"For you to escape the village!"

"Huh?"

"If there ever was a good reason to become a rouge ninja, this is it."

"I'm going to go talk to Kurenai," Kakashi snapped.

"No!" Asuma hurriedly grabbed his arm. "Don't tell Kurenai about this," Asuma said, hoping he wouldn't lose his only means of bartering.

Kakashi shook him off. "Kurenai!"

Kurenai saw who it was, and excused herself from her conversation with Shizune with what Asuma noted was a very "I'll tell you _everything_" look.

And so Kakashi told it again. He really appreciated Kurenai not finding the situation amusing, as he suspected Asuma did.

"So, what do I do?" he finished lamely.

"Tell Iruka before he hears it from Gai," she said simply.

"Well, there's an, um, fair chance he might already know."

Kurenai looked interested. Shizune had also casually sidled over and was eavesdropping on the conversation in a most conspicuous manner.

"Oooh! What happened?" Kurenai asked eagerly.

Before Kakashi could get another word out, his team entered the ramen shop, arguing loudly. The second Naruto saw Kakashi, he halted in his path, causing Sakura to crash into him and Sasuke to crash into her. His team goggled at him like they had never seen him before, and Naruto gave Sakura a very obvious nudge with his elbow.

They didn't even start shrieking at him about not showing up for training, which worried him the most.

"Kakashi–sensei!" Naruto squeaked. He _squeaked._

Sasuke regarded him interestedly. Sakura was giving him one very weird look.

"…Yo," Kakashi said slowly, beginning to sense an impending cloud of doom.

"We have to go. No, Naruto, _remember? _We're meeting… Shikamaru! Yeah. Come _on, _you two," Sakura said, backpedaling out of the shop and dragging the boys with her.

Once they were gone, an extraordinarily uncomfortable silence pervaded the shop. Kakashi sat down heavily. "What has Gai been saying?" he asked faintly.

Asuma patted his shoulder. "It's not too late to become a missing nin. I'd cover for you until you got to, say, Wave Country, and then you could—"

"Kakashi isn't going to become a missing nin," Kurenai said, placing a supportive hand on his arm. "We'll get this worked out."

"I'm going to kill Gai. And then I'm going to kill myself. And then I'm going to kill Gai _again." _

Indeed, Asuma thought to himself, if Gai had appeared just then, for example swinging into the shop to exclaim on the beautiful sunshine, there would have been bloodshed.

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Iruka wasn't sure why people kept giving him weird looks. It was really getting annoying. Conversation stopped whenever he came within ten feet of a group of people, everyone kept turning their heads to look at him, and even his students seemed unusually quiet.

It had started during the lunch break. He'd gone into the break room, and immediately all conversation had ceased. Izumo, Iwashi, and Kotetsu had been having an animated discussion about—something or other, Iruka had no clue—but the moment Iruka stepped in to get his coffee, they'd fallen silent and gawked.

Iruka tried making some minimal polite conversation, but in the end simply had to escape the bizarre atmosphere, and fled the room.

He checked himself over—nothing on the back of his head, no STARE AT IRUKA sign taped to his back, he hadn't sat in gum, there was nothing on his face. He didn't get it.

When a group of girls he passed in the hall at the Academy giggled and stared wide-eyed, he began to be seriously worried.

Once lunch was over and he had his class in front of him once again, every single one of them eerily quiet, he decided he had to do _something._

"Okay, what is it."

Silence.

"No, really, I have to know. Why is everyone staring at me?"

Konohamaru mumbled something. The only things Iruka caught were, "Kakashi-sensei" and "Gai-sensei said."

Iruka turned very white. "Gai said _what?"_

Konohamaru mumbled something inarticulate.

"Okay. Everyone out. Class dismissed. Go home. And if any of you see Gai sensei on the way, employ the shuriken training we did earlier today. Remember? It's all in the wrist. Throw from the wrist. Oh, and Konohamaru, stay afterwards for a few minutes, would you?" _So I can interrogate you._ But within a blink of an eye, his class had vanished out the door, and Konohamaru along with it. Iruka stuck his head into the hall to yell after him, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Fine. He'd deal with this himself, then. Cursing, he went off to find Gai.

**Evil mutant page breaks of doom. Actually, I think I might have fixed it, but let's see how it turns out when it's posted.**

**And I mixed up Genma and Raidou last chapter. Things like that annoy me so badly. Grrr…**

**I suppose we'll get to Genma and Raidou next chapter. I don't know. Any suggestions are appreciated. **

**Review, and I'll return the favor. (don't kill me if I don't. I really do intend to. Promise.) thankya.**


	5. Note: Irresponsible Use of a Senbon

**Cringe I have no idea…**

**--------**

For the second time in one day, Genma woke up not knowing where he was. He thought that this was a little much. But, well.

It was dark, he was lying on a couch, or something of the sort, and there was a head resting on his leg.

"Raidou?"

The other man bolted up. "Damn, what time is it?"

"I dunno." Genma was going to assume that they were at Raidou's apartment. He was not, however, going to dwell on how this might have come to pass.

Raidou stood up, stretched, and turned on a lamp.

Genma put his fingers to his lips. "Where's my senbon?" he mumbled.

"That's the first thing you ask? You're so weird," Raidou told him. "It's over there. I took it out cause I was sure you were going to stab yourself with it in your sleep."

"I _won't _stab myself," Genma grumbled. "I've been doing this for a while, and no casualties yet."

"I just don't think it's a good idea to sleep with a needle in your mouth. Anyone would agree with me."

"Hand it over."

"Yeah? Come and get it then," Raidou teased, snatching the needle from the table and putting it in his mouth. "No hands allowed."

"You—" Genma sat up and lunged forward, hand raised.

"You're no fun," Raidou tsked. "If you want this needle so badly, take it." He grabbed Genma's wrists and pinned them together behind his back with one strong hand.

Genma glared for a bit, making no signs he was planning on taking up on Raidou's offer.

The two stood still there, Genma glaring stonily in response to the other man's insufferable smirk. Then Raidou jerked forward ever so slightly, so that it was nearly impossible to tell which one of them had moved, and caught Genma above the lip with the tip of the needle, drawing blood.

"Dammit, Raidou, watch it!" Genma hissed putting his hand up to his face to feel the thin gash that had appeared over his lip.

"Shit. Sorry, Genma. Didn't mean to," Raidou said, rather unconvincingly.

"D'you know what's on that thing!?"

"What?"

"It's laced with a paralyzant. Fast acting, deadly if it hits the right place!"

"Is that so? Then you're damn lucky it just got you above the lip," Raidou said, brushing a finger over the shallow cut, wiping away a bead of blood.

"You've got _that_ right. I'm going to _kill _you."

"Hey, who's smart idea was it to go around with a poisonous needle in their mouth? I can't see how you're possibly blaming this on me."

"Because you—"

"I didn't do it on _purpose. _And how was I supposed to know the thing was laced with some freaky drug of yours?"

"Raidou, I—" but the bandana-ed ninja broke off, wheezing. "Dammit. It's working."

"Hmmm?"

"It paralyzes the area—which in this case would make ih almos impossib to talk—" Genma rasped. "And ih causes the win-pipe to constrict, so the victim can't breathe."

"Well, you're screwed."

"And if it's allowed to get into the bloodstream it—" he hacked. "It paralyzes the rest of the body. If it hits anything vital, the victim dies in under ten minutes."

Raidou whistled. "_Really _lucky it only broke the skin, then."

"I feel as though you fin' this amusing," Genma snarled with some difficulty.

"Oh, no way."

"Raidou, 'ucking bastar! Could ya _do _omething?"

"I always thought it was idiotic of you to keep that needle in your mouth at all times—but one laced with a deadly poison? Damn, Genma."

"This is _not _a something you need to joke about!"

"What d'you want me to do, anyway?"

"The Hokage," Genma wheezed. "She's the only one—might have antidote—" An unnatural bluish tint was spreading from the edges of the cut to the rest of his face, and he was hacking for air.

"Tsunade? I don't think so… you not going to be able to move your legs, right? And I don't want to take you; she'll rail me out about not showing up for work… and she'll probably get furious with you for doing something so stupid…"

"_You're the one who—!" _Genma broke off, rasping.

"Look, Genma, the facts remain that you injured yourself with a poisonous senbon you like to carry in your mouth. This doesn't look like anybody's fault but yours," Raidou said conversationally. "What to do, what to do…?" he practically sang.

"I am going to _die_ of asphyxiation, Raidou."

"Oh, I know! Remember that time Gai tried to give that venomous snake the Nice Guy Pose and Kakashi had to suck the poison out of his thumb?" Raidou asked brightly.

Genma paled. "Oh no you don't—"

Raidou grinned evilly.

"Would you just take me to the damn 'okage…" Genma pleaded.

"No time! You're about to die of asphyxiation, after all. You've probably already gone into anaphylactic shock!" Raidou insisted.

"You _so _do not need to suck poison out of my face."

"Sorry, but I do."

"I can't believe this. First you _poison_ me, 'n now you're trying to take advantage of the situation?"

"Oh, don't be such a baby."

" 'N I have not gone into anaph—" Genma broke off, hacking.

He might have tried to further deter Raidou, had he been able to breathe and/or use his vocal cords. He had to settle for wheezing and mouthing furious obscenities.

"I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to say," Raidou said cheerily. "So I'll take that as patient's consent."

Genma thought briefly about ways to injure Raidou that didn't require any bodily movement. He couldn't think of many. But then Raidou's lips made contact with his face and Genma lost all will to escape. A million thoughts shot through his muddled head.

_What. The. Hell. This is definitely weird. _

…_And is amazing._

_It's worth being poisoned, if this is what I get._

_I will, however, kill Raidou as soon as I can move my arms again._

_If this is really supposed to be a purely curative treatment, he's not being very convincing about it._

…_But I'm definitely not complaining._

_Not that I'm not entirely not pissed off that I got impaled by my own weapon and am having my temporary paralysis being taken advantage of. _

_But, you know. _

Evidently, shamelessly taking advantage of the other man's immobility wasn't the only thing on Raidou's mind. He actually was concerned with getting the poison out of Genma's system, no matter how unorthodoxly he chose to go about it. Genma could give him that, at least. He pulled away and went to the sink to spit, and then washed out his mouth with a glass of water.

"I'm not going to die from having that stuff in my mouth, am I?" he inquired.

Genma pulled himself together enough to shake his head. "You're a _bastard," _he

said, though all he accomplished was a strange rasping noise. He decided it was better to take care of this end of the argument first.

"Rest your voice, Genma."

"Like hell. You 'ucking did 'at on urpose."

"What, stabbed you with your own senbon?"

"Yes!" Genma tried to yell, only managing a hardly audible squeak.

"Why would I do that?" Raidou asked innocently.

"So you could "suck out the poison" for me!"

"Listen, you would have suffocated, you said so yourself. And you liked it anyway."

Genma's face, which had begun to return to its normal color, reddened considerably. "I hate you."

"Such a shame…he doesn't even know what he's saying," said, shaking his head.

"Asshole," Genma mouthed.

"Invalid."

Genma whipped the hazardous senbon up from the floor and threw it like a dart. Raidou dodged.

"You know what'll help?" Raidou asked brightly. "Alcohol."

Genma looked dubious.

"No, really. And I don't feel like hanging around the apartment any more. Let's go to the bar."

Genma though it would be really pushing it to go back to very same bar they'd been abusing the services of the night before and expect not to have their heads knocked through the walls, but he wasn't capable of voicing this particular opinion.

"Come on." Raidou helped him up, lifted the other man's arm around his shoulders, and helped him hobble towards the door.

"…Can't even _walk—" _Genma muttered hoarsely.

There was still a glint of humor in Raidou's eye, but he'd lost his teasing tone for a softer one. He brushed the cut on Genma's face with his knuckle. "Rest your voice," he whispered.

Genma complied.

**Um. The Raidou/Genma-ness didn't come very easily… this is what I get for trying to keep up with two pairings at once. Oh well. review?**


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